/* Copyright (C) 2000-2007  Egon Willighagen <egonw@users.sf.net>
 *
 * Contact: cdk-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License
 * as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1
 * of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
 * All we ask is that proper credit is given for our work, which includes
 * - but is not limited to - adding the above copyright notice to the beginning
 * of your source code files, and to any copyright notice that you may distribute
 * with programs based on this work.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT Any WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 * GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
 * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
 * Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
 */

namespace NCDK.IO
{
    /// <summary>
    /// This class is the interface that all IO readers should implement.
    /// Programs need only care about this interface for any kind of IO.
    /// Currently, database IO and file IO is supported.
    /// <para>
    /// The easiest way to implement a new ChemObjectReader is to
    /// subclass the DefaultChemObjectReader.
    /// </para>
    /// <para>
    /// I don't know how this should be enforced, but a Reader should
    /// also provide an empty constructor so that ClassLoader/Instance
    /// can be used to instantiate a ChemObjectReader.
    /// </para>
    /// </summary>
    /// <seealso cref="DefaultChemObjectReader"/>
    // @cdk.module io
    // @author Egon Willighagen <egonw@users.sf.net>
    public interface ISimpleChemObjectReader 
        : IChemObjectReader
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Reads an IChemObject of type "object" from input. The constructor
        /// of the actual implementation may take a Reader as input to get
        /// a very flexible reader that can read from string, files, etc.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="o">the type of object to return</param>
        /// <returns>returns an object of that contains the content (or part) of the input content</returns>
        /// <exception cref="CDKException">it is thrown if the type of information is not available from the input</exception>
        T Read<T>(T o) where T : IChemObject;
    }
}
